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The Joint Action Programme of the ICPDR outlined the specific steps that were agreed to be taken over the period 2001-2005 to achieve the environmental objectives outlined in the Danube River Protection Convention including many large-scale measures to reduce water pollution, to promote nature conservation, to restore ecosystems, and to safeguard the long-term sustainable management of the environment.

Expert Groups (EGs) are the backbone of the operation and the success of the ICPDR. They are composed of national experts from the Contracting Parties and representatives from ICPDR observer organisations. Eight different Expert Groups deal with a variety of issues and make recommendations to the ICPDR.

The Accident Emergency Warning System (AEWS) of the Danube River Basin is activated whenever there is a risk of transboundary water pollution, or threshold danger levels of certain hazardous substances are exceeded.

The Danube River Protection Convention forms the overall legal instrument for co-operation on transboundary water management in the Danube River Basin. The Convention was signed on June 29 1994 in Sofia (Bulgaria) and came into force in 1998. It aims to ensure that surface waters and groundwater within the Danube River Basin are managed and used sustainably and equitably.

The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) works to ensure the sustainable and equitable use of waters in the Danube River Basin. The work of the ICPDR is based on the Danube River Protection Convention (DRPC), the major legal instrument for cooperation and transboundary water management in the Danube River Basin.

Water quality in the Danube has improved over the years, but there is still much work to be done to meet the region’s goals for water status. To improve the water quality, an ambitious programme of measures for the whole Danube River Basin District has been agreed under the EU WFD. To assess trends in water quality, the ICPDR oversees the TransNational Monitoring Network (TNMN). The network carefully monitors physical, chemical and biological conditions in the Danube and its tributaries, and provides in TNMN Yearbooks an annual overview of pollution levels as well as long term trends for water quality in the basin.